Educational standards under fire
Aug 13 2008 by Peter Leathley, The Journal
MOST bosses believe the education system is failing business and the Government is doing too little to close the skills gap.
Just 12% of managers believe that college and university leavers are entering employment with the right skills, according to a survey of Institute of Directors members.
Despite year on year improvements to national A-level and GCSE results, almost half of directors believe the quality of education has declined over the last 10 years and that this is leading to difficulties in recruiting staff.
The research, which was produced in association with the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre at Durham University, also shows that employers believe that basic skills such as literacy and numeracy are still sorely lacking amongst youngsters, despite seeing improvements in areas such as IT. Richard Elphick, North East regional chairman of the IoD, said: “There is a substantial credibility gap between what official statistics show and what employers feel on the front line. Even at face value, the official figures illustrate a need for a step change in performance to meet future skill needs. The true international challenge could be even greater.”
The widening skills gap has been of particular concern to the North East’s manufacturing sector, with many firms concerned about a lack of new blood. Brian Fenwick, operations director at Newcastle-based Security Risk Management, which makes equipment for the security industry, said: “There’s always been a problem in this area. Most students are used to taking weeks to complete an assignment and are completely unused to the pace of the real world, which is either income driven in the private sector or target driven in the public sector. There is definitely a problem with literacy, which can make the recruitment process difficult.”
His view is even shared by a large number of university staff, with 72% of admission tutors believing that the quality of their undergraduates has either remained the same over recent years (32%) or deteriorated (41%).
But some business groups hope the situation will be improved by the Government’s new college diploma scheme and its plans to dramatically increase the number of apprenticeships. Mike Parker, spokesman for the North East Chamber of Commerce, said: “The skills that our graduates are leaving university with are far from useless. Employers have become a lot more demanding and expect a high level of flexibility from new staff, which is often difficult to achieve. We will be working hard to ensure that the number of apprenticeships continues to increase and will be watching to see whether the college diploma helps to improve work-based skills.”
